1. Field
This application generally relates to the field of information technology, and more particularly to systems and methods for data management, search and selection:
2. Related Art
The volume of stored data in our increasingly computerized and networked world continues to grow rapidly, perhaps exponentially. Consequently, the usefulness of methods for searching and data management can hardly be exaggerated. Data is collected and sorted or searched for consumer purchase decisions, law enforcement investigations, and scientific research, to mention just a few examples. All of these can benefit from employment of the methods and systems that follow the teaching herein.
The above identified U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,544,360 (“the '360 patent”) and 6,826,566 (“the '566 patent”) describe technology employed in database management systems that may be referred to as TIE (for Technology for Information Engineering™, a trademark of Speedtrack, Inc.) systems or software. The term TIE system does not refer only to software, methods or a system that has been actually implemented by Speedtrack, Inc., or by others, but rather refers to any software, method or system that is consistent with the teaching that is set forth explicitly, or is incorporated in this document by reference to either the '360 patent or the '566 patent.
The subject matter of the '360 and '566 patents includes a method of identifying and retrieving DataItems by means of a guided search, in which the user is presented with Selectors (corresponding to ItemSelectors in the '566 patent and Categories in the '360 patent) that are currently available to be chosen by the user to further limit the range of DataItems specified by the search. An important effect of the described search method is that upon choosing an available Selector, the user is guaranteed to be identifying at least one DataItem, which can then be retrieved. Development of an appropriate vocabulary of Selectors permits a user to access data located anywhere in a database based on its content, by means of a Selector-based, non-hierarchical, guided search.
Depending on the exact implementation of a TIE data access system, ambiguities can arise that impair the effectiveness of searches. One important source of ambiguity is caused by confusion between Subitems within a DataItem. A police incident report may serve as a DataItem. Any particular incident report is likely to have a plurality of some type of Subitem. For example, a report of an auto accident may include three vehicles and their drivers. If one vehicle is a red 4-door sedan Toyota Corolla, another is a white pickup Ford Ranger, and the third is a green minivan Dodge Caravan, it is easy to see that the overall DataItem would appear to match a “green vehicle 4-door sedan Ford.” Many approaches are possible to overcome this sort of ambiguity, several of which are described herein.
A second important source of ambiguity arises not from conflation of information in DataItems, but from the difficulty of identifying sufficient context to lead a user to useful results. In this case, the lack of context renders the search terms ambiguous. “Red” or even “bright red” may refer to clothes, cars, faces, planets, stars, lasers, blood, animals such as frogs or snakes, etc. To reduce the ambiguity, context is needed. Yet such context is likely to be described differently by different people, making it difficult for people to describe, and difficult for computers to identify, the intended context.
Clearly, improved techniques for organizing and searching data are needed, for example to reduce the ambiguity that may result from many current search and data management techniques. Methods and systems that address these needs, and provide further benefit, are described herein.